Kids and shelter dogs bond over books

The Humane Society of Missouri is inviting children to read to their shelter dogs in an adorable - and mutually beneficial - program.

The Shelter Buddies Reading Program gives kids a completely non-judgmental audience to practice their reading skills, while at the same time helping acclimate timid and anxious shelter dogs to the presence of humans.

"We started this for two reasons," JoEllyn Klepacki, the assistant director of education at the Missouri Humane Society, told ABC News. "Dogs in a shelter environment exhibit a lot of signs of anxiety and show stress signals, so we wanted to do something to comfort them, and we have a lot of children in our area who are really engaged and they ask, 'How can I help? How can I make a difference?'"